


No Hope, No Love, No Glory (No Happy Ending)

by novel_concept26



Category: Glee
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-26
Updated: 2011-05-26
Packaged: 2017-11-06 15:32:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/420428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/novel_concept26/pseuds/novel_concept26
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It isn’t about getting along so much as getting <em>it</em>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Hope, No Love, No Glory (No Happy Ending)

Title: No Hope, No Love, No Glory (No Happy Ending)  
Pairing: Quinn Fabray/Santana Lopez/Brittany Pierce friendship  
Rating: PG  
Disclaimer: Nothing owned, no profit gained.  
Spoilers: Through S2.  
Summary: It isn’t about getting along so much as getting _it_.  
A/N: Title from Mika's "Happy Ending." Also, this totally disregards the Lucy storyline because it doesn't flow even a little bit with my long-standing head canon. Oh well.

Santana Lopez is angry. In all likelihood, it’s probably like Gaga says: she was born that way. Full of rage, full of uncertainty, the most confident ball of insecurity in Ohio. She’s angry, and she’s feisty, and Quinn has never seen eye to eye with her. Not when they were eight and arguing over the best Pokemon to start off with (Santana rooted for Charmander with all her might, blatantly ignoring the ease with which Quinn’s Squirtle ruined her each and every time). Not when they were twelve, bickering over the best way to wear their hair (Quinn preferred headbands, while Santana insisted upon a messy bun atop her head). Not when they turned fifteen and began the raging war for Head Cheerio (Quinn won—until Santana did—until they both astonishingly lost the title to, she hears through the grapevine, Becky Jackson). The point is, they’re best friends, but that doesn’t mean they _like_ each other all of the time.

Or most of the time.

Or—this year—ever.

Brittany Pierce is an enigma. She’s silly, ditzy, the epitome of “head in the clouds.” When they were eight and Quinn was kicking Santana’s ass up and down Blue Version Block, Brittany played quietly with her own Gameboy in the corner, praising her Bulbasaur for every victory. When they were twelve and Santana was sneering at Quinn’s multi-colored headbands, Brittany didn’t bother pulling her hair back at all. When they turned fifteen and began the knock-down, drag-out brawl for Head Bitch, Brittany couldn’t have cared less; she enjoyed the Cheerios for its gymnastics and its heart, not the title that came with. Honestly, Quinn has never understood where Brittany comes from on anything. The girl actually drives her just a little bit batty, with all her bizarre ideas and inept definitions.

She wonders how Britt has made it this far, academically speaking. It’s unreal.

The two of them are the weirdest friends a girl could have, even failing to consider the very real emotions they have tried so hard to conceal. With that added to the mix—Santana being helplessly head over heels, yet trapped in the most well-padlocked closet on earth; Brittany being equally as in love, but unable to tear that closet door off with her bare hands—they’re downright insane. Even more so, if they think she doesn’t know. For God’s sake, they’ve been sneaking off together— _without_ her—for years. Maybe for the entire duration of their friendship. Quinn can’t remember a time when Santana’s hand was devoid of Brittany’s for long.

They’re lunatics, the both of them, and she hasn’t been able to get along with them…well, ever. Technically speaking, she has no idea why they call themselves best friends. Kurt and Rachel? They’re best friends (although she highly doubts Kurt would admit it yet). They sneak off to breakfast together, have sleepovers, do the girl-talk thing. The only time Quinn has ever girl-talked with Santana, it was to exploit the weaknesses of lesser girls on the squad. They’d never break into a Broadway theater, even if Quinn could confess out loud to liking such a dorky thing. (Which she doesn’t. It’s just that years of mocking Rachel’s videos tended to get the songs stuck in her head, and maybe she’s a little curious, but that doesn’t make her a Broadway dweeb or anything.)

They’re not friends like Kurt and Rachel are friends. Or Puck and Finn. Or Tina and Mercedes. They don’t talk out their problems so much as ignore them until someone reaches a breaking point, exploding in a hair-pulling, red-faced screaming match in the hallway. They don’t help each other plot dates; in fact, up until recently, Santana has been more likely to actively _sabotage_ one of Quinn’s evenings than serenade her date in a helpful manner. And they sure as hell don’t hold each other when things go wrong—usually.

Difficult though it may be, however, she has to remember that these people _are_ her best friends—and it’s not because they do any of those “typical friend” things for her. No one does that for her. It just doesn’t come with the territory of popularity. The huggy, loving, shoulder-to-cry-on type? It isn’t her. That’s Rachel’s ballgame. She’s nothing like Rachel.

 _Nothing_.

No, the reason Santana and Brittany are her best friends is much more complicated than any other friendship she’s seen. Because Santana and Brittany? They have a history of abandoning her. Mocking her. Treating her like furniture when her pregnancy blew her dress size up to elephantine. They have a history of accompanying her to parties only to ditch the second alcohol hit their tongues. From the very beginning, it has been Santana-and-Brittany, with Quinn as a side player. This is nothing new, and truthfully? It doesn’t really hurt. Not anymore. She learned to get over her expectations for them before they reached middle school. Which, she figures, kind of helped. If she couldn’t be part of their twosome, she would simply have to rise above and be _better_ than them. Without this potentially-unhealthy dynamic of theirs, Quinn would never have become the girl she is today.

She hopes this is a good thing.

Her friendship with those two is about being one step ahead, just barely standing on the outskirts of their inside jokes and flirtatious smiles. Her friendship with them is about being stronger and faster and just a little bit more clever than even Santana’s scheming mind. Her friendship with them is about and allowing them to push her—and pushing _herself_ —to be the very best.

They do more for her, she figures, than Tina has ever done for Mercedes. They have shaped her in a way Puck couldn’t dream of doing for Finn. They’ve trained her the way Kurt will never, ever train Rachel.

She wishes it felt like enough as she stands here in this pristine New York hotel room, losing every available inch of her shit.

They _are_ her friends—the best friends she has ever had—but she doesn’t understand them. And if that’s true, how could they _ever_ hope to have a clue as to what she’s going through? They’re distracted, tied up in their own petty little dramas. Santana is looking at the wall right now, eyes doing their best not to flick to Brittany’s face. Santana has been so bogged down in this little closeted lovefest that she can’t even see straight. How could she _dare_ to understand Quinn’s life?

And Brittany—well, Britt’s got her hands full just trying to keep Santana afloat. Trying to convince her without pressuring that _she_ is what Santana needs. That _she_ can be enough, if Santana will only set her fear aside and let her. Brittany has been playing this game far longer than Santana realizes, and the only reason Quinn knows is because she has been playing silent spectator since they were children.

She really wishes they would get their heads on straight already. If their time runs out, if Brittany gives up on Santana, or Santana gives up on herself , Quinn doesn’t know what they’re going to do. They’re enough of a collective mess already.

Proof: she is standing in this mostly-empty room, screaming about how she doesn’t care about Glee, and Santana is fighting back the way she always has: without seeing the point. Quinn is standing here, losing her _mind_ , and all Santana can say is, “This is our chance to _finally_ feel good about ourselves.”

Quinn wonders what she hopes to achieve in a stupid show choir competition. It sure as hell isn’t something she couldn’t find in the blonde standing between them.

Sick, that she can’t even see that.

It’s killing her to think about this, how they’re the most amazing people in that school, and no one seems to see it. They may profess to hate her, but when push comes to shove, every single person throws their towel into Rachel’s ring—not just now, but every _single_ time. And where does that leave the three of them? Quinn, standing in this hotel room, a lone tear streaking down her face. Santana, scoffing at the wall to keep from showering Brittany with the love she can’t fully embrace. Brittany, head down, knowing nothing she does will ever fix their problems.

They are the prettiest girls in the school, the most popular, the ones who should be getting the attention and the glory—so why are they sitting here, alone, broken and tired and uncertain of where to go next? Why does _Rachel_ get the gold when Quinn has to settle for less than bronze, time after time?

It doesn’t make sense.

And this? This is why these are her best friends. Because only _they_ understand this part. No one else could even come close to getting it. No one else could ever grasp the enormity of the situation. They are pretty, and they are powerful, but when that diploma has been placed in their hands, what comes next? Santana can’t keep hiding from herself forever, just like Brittany can’t keep waiting for her. And Quinn?

Quinn is seventeen years old, without a father, with a mother who chooses to ignore the important moments and capitalize on the weak ones. Quinn is seventeen and utterly alone, utterly terrified, and thoroughly without a future.

It's too early to check out, but she can't imagine where to go from here.

Quinn, barely over a year ago, had a beautiful baby girl in her arms—and now all she has is a pair of equally scared little girls sitting on either side. None of them know what to say, or where to go. None of them have a plan.

The Cheerios? _That_ was a plan.

The scholarship? A plan.

The dream of being bigger and better than this pathetic hick town? The plan to end all plans.

And now?

They’re here. In a hotel in New York, for a show choir they joined with the express intention of destroying. They have given up everything to be here, and for what? To be “themselves”?

Quinn doesn’t have the first clue who “herself” even is.

Santana is, if anything, worse.

 _This_ is why these two lunatics are her best friends. Not because they are great. Not because they are giving. Not because they will hold her when the world comes crashing down. They are her friends because, of all the people at that school, in that town, only they understand what this emptiness feels like. The hollow certainty that, unless something changes, this is as good as it is going to get—and this “good” really isn’t that great.

They’re her best friends because, when the chips are down, no one will ever see her the way they do. No one will ever sit with her on a hotel bed, brush her bangs back, and offer to give her a haircut to distract from this hell she’s living. No one will ever listen to her whimper that she wants someone to love her and know that she wants nothing in return but the _right_ to just say it. They’re insane. They will never make sense to her, or see eye-to-eye with her, or make her feel like a queen. They can’t even get their _own_ heads out of their asses. But in the end?

Santana Lopez and Brittany Pierce are all she’s got. They’ve been here from day one. And in some strange, not-so-small way, she owes them her sanity.

In the end, that is far more important than _liking_ one another one hundred percent of the time.


End file.
